How does ECC memory contribute to overall system reliability and data integrity, especially in long-running operations?

ECC memory significantly contributes to overall system reliability and data integrity by proactively mitigating memory errors that would otherwise lead to silent data corruption or system crashes. In long-running operations, such as servers, scientific simulations, or continuous data processing, the probability of encountering memory errors increases over time. By automatically correcting single-bit errors on the fly, ECC memory ensures that the data being processed remains accurate and consistent, preventing application failures, unexpected reboots, and the propagation of corrupted data throughout the system, thereby maintaining uptime and trustworthiness of data.